Sword’s Edge Publishing

SEP has published a few lines that may be of interest, and you can find a page devoted to each.

Centurion: Legionaries of Rome has characters serving under the eagles of Rome in her famous legions.

Nefertiti Overdrive is about high-octane, wire-fu action set in Ancient Egypt and includes a series of adventures that tell a longer story.

Sword’s Edge is a generic system for which multiple adventures in different genres are available.

Who Doesn’t Love A Library?

This one is more of a one-page component of an adventure than the adventure itself. This is an answer to the issue of PCs finding information. Sometimes, it’s just as easy to hand it over—have one of the PCs with the proper build know the information. Sometimes, it can be fun to breakdown how and where they get that information. For me, when it comes to ancient or otherwise forgotten knowledge, I force them to do what I did for so much of my time in university: do a little research!

Story

In search of forgotten or obscure knowledge, the PCs seek out an archive that they know to have ancient sources—tomes and scrolls and maybe cuneiform tablets. The knowledge of which archive to visit and where that archive can be found might be it’s own little adventure following a similar path.

Places

The Town: This was once the main city of the state, but with changes in dynasties and power centres, its importance has dwindled and so too has its population. It is now peripheral to politics, but still has the memories of that all-but-forgotten time—especially in its archives.

The Archives: This might be a state institution still as it was when it was first created, or maybe it fell into private hands after power moved away. It fills a tower near the centre of the city, with its collection reaching through three underground levels.

People

The Curator: The archive—whether it is in private or public hands—will have a managing and/or controlling figure. They will be the one whom the PCs will need to convince to provide them access if not assistance in their quest. As this is a kind of librarian, I would argue they will be enthusiastic, generous, and helpful. In my version, they are thrilled someone wants to use the archive to expand their knowledge, and will be a useful ally in the search.

The Troll: Not a literal one, but someone seeking power and trying to protect theirs. That’s this person. They see the PCs efforts to uncover knowledge as reducing their own power—forgetting that knowledge is not a zero-sum game. They will do their utmost to create obstacles for the PCs, though they will not do so overtly. The Troll can be an outside figure who hasn’t cared about the archives until somebody wants to use it.

Events

The Approach: The PCs will need to introduce themselves to the Curator and gain permission to access the archives. They may not be able to explain fully what they want if their purpose is to remain secret, but they’ll need to gain the Curator’s trust and acceptance if not their cooperation.

The Search: There can be many layers to the Search. The Curator will understand the structure of the archive and will have some form of indexing, but even then, the PCs will need to go through different works seeking for clues. Those clues will lead to other documents with more clues. If the players are reacting negatively to this scenario, let the PCs quickly hit upon the information they need. If the players are engaged in the pursuit, there are multiple nuggets of information in different sources that all lead to the final accumulation of the knowledge the PCs seek.

Things of Power

The Rings of Power introduced something that had been part of a Middle-Earth campaign I ran back in high school based on information from The Lord of the Rings’ appendices and The Silmarillion—there were five Istari, and the two Blue Istari disappeared into Rhun. I can’t remember much more than that, but in that campaign, the two Blue Istari returned, one taking Dol Guldor in Mirkwood and the other re-claiming Minas Morgul in Mordor at a time when the Reunited Kingdom was eating itself alive due to dynastic politics. So, this adventure is going to mimic that first adventure way back before even the first Lord of the Rings movies, when all we had was Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings and Rankin Bass’ Return of the King.

I’m thinking that the dying empire and the necromancer who is at the heart of this one-pager have a long history. In my thinking, the empire is the second rising of an ancient polity, and it had gained dominance after battling with an upstart kingdom led by a powerful enemy known as The Necromancer. Well, the emperors called them a necromancer, but they were more of a sorcerer. The emperor brought together a coalition of powerful nations under its leadership, defeated the sorcerer’s kingdom, and then forced itself on the coalition as a kind of overlord. That was two hundred years ago. The empire is falling apart as this story begins.

This is kind of a mystery, and much of it is finding more clues to the identity of The Necromancer at the centre of it. As the one-pager is intended for inspiration and outline rather than details, anyone running this scenario would probably add more clues than are mentioned.

Story

It’s a dark time of uncertainty. As the old king withers on the throne, his children squabble over the kingdom. Here, on the edges of kingdom, a collection of wanderers, warriors, and rogues come together in a trading town engulfed in terror. People are disappearing. The mornings after moonless nights, more are missing—sometimes entire families. The mayor and council are too busy playing politics to do anything, and as long as it doesn’t touch the families of the rich and powerful, the authorities don’t seem inclined to do anything. The PCs are drawn in for their own reasons, seeking answers to this deadly riddle.

Places

The Site: The rumours are that every moonless night, people vanish brings murders. The PCs will actually have a chance to examine the scene, as a family close tot hem disappears. Rumours spoke of markings in blood, which the PCs find. Any spellcaster (or perhaps academic) will recognize them and their import—these are dark runes of magic, last used by the Cult of the Undead King, who worshipped the ancient enemy known as the Necromancer. And the markings are made in blood—a person’s blood

The Citadel: Now a ruin in an all-but-abandoned quarter of the city, this was the fort that fostered the town. The imperial officers now live in expensive townhouses and work in the Urbis Curia. The Citadel is now the centre of the Cult of the Undead King, seeking to resurrect the Necromancer.

People

The Contacts: There are those in the town who can help the PCs—a sage who has encountered these runes before, some unhoused who have noted strange goings-on at the Citadel, and even witnesses from among the underclass who have seen strange, dark carriages staffed with people swathed in darkness on moonless nights. The contacts will help illuminate the PCs and given them clues—or interpret them. But their chatter will also alert the Cult of the Undead King to the PCs’ investigation.

The Count: The Lord-Mayor of the town is also an imperial count, distantly related to the ruling family. They are unimpressed with the PCs and disinclined to pursue murders that have only occurred among the underclass and have not yet disturbed the ‘good people.’

The Acolyte: This is an individual who has studied magic their entire life. They believe they are resurrecting The Necromancer of legend. They are not. That being has been discorporated and can never again appear in the material plane. Instead, this is the last of an ancient line of wizards drawn to the use of magics they thought extinct.

Events

The Encounter: As the PCs close in on the Cult, the Acolyte sends some of the Cult’s more brutal adherents to intimidate the PCs. When that doesn’t work, the next group will seek to persuade the PCs of the correctness of their efforts. Finally, the Acolyte and their most powerful adherents will seek out the PCs to kill them.

The Appearance: Before the Acolyte and the PCs have their climactic encounter, the ancient wizard arrives, seeking the Acolyte. The wizard’s failure to participate in the defeat of the Necromancer—even though the Necromancer was defeated—has left them resentful and angry, with too many years (centuries?) to nurse their bitterness. Will they seek to defeat the Acolyte as the last vestige of the Necromancer’s cult, or will they ally themselves with the cult, their bitterness having broken them?

Losing Sanctuary

In most adventures that I’ve written, the PCs are able to gain a direct victory—overpowering the opposition through physical, mental, or social means—but it’s always interesting to change it up and present them with a problem that the direct approach can’t solve. That’s what it’s like when you are the smartest or the strongest in the room. That led me to think about a situation ’s what it’s like for a real underdog. In our world—and, to be honest, historically—that’s been the fate of displaced persons. This isn’t the first time the subject informed my RPG writing.  I had plans to write on the fate of a particularly famous group of likely displaced people during the Late Bronze Age collapse—Sagas of the Sea Peoples got recycled as the Sword’s Edge adventure Poles of Power. This one-pager is still a kind of a power fantasy—it’s a lot cleaner and removed from real suffering than most refugee situations—but it presents a situation the PCs can’t punch their way out of.

Story

The PCs control Sanctuary—this could be a tavern and inn, it could be a quarter of a city, or it might even be a city or town itself—that sits between two opposing powers. It is the only safety for the refugees from the war. The PCs can’t openly use violence as the opposing armies have escalation dominance—they can bring far more force to bear on Sanctuary than the PCs can even hope to oppose. As the war is coming to a close, both armies seek battlefield victories to improve their positions and the polity’s negotiation position. The PCs need to protect Sanctuary and the refugees finding shelter until peace or at least stability arrives.

Places

Sanctuary: What is it? How do the PCs control it—are they the oligarchy controlling a city state or the owners of an establishment inside a city that is the site of battles between the opposing powers?

Paradise: There is another place of refuge, and a more permanent one. For the lucky few, Sanctuary is but a stop on their journey. Many others must try to find a means to reach Paradise and be accepted there.

Challenges

The Soldiers: The war has been long and it has been cruel. Those fighting have been brutalized by it. The enemy has been dehumanized and atrocities committed. The soldiers likely feel there will be no repercussions for the crimes they commit, and some welcome that as they share their pain with the world or try to blot it out through brutality.

The Leaders: For some of the leaders of the opposing powers, Sanctuary is an insult. It flaunts their authority, and for some people, that is a personal slight. They will not accept anything except total submission. They do not care that submission to them lays one open to retribution from the enemy. That is not their concern.

The Professionals: There are those on both sides who abhor the crimes and atrocities. Yes, it is a constant is war, but that does not mean one should accept it. As Shakespeare had Henry V say: “. . . when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.”

Events

Balance of Power: One of the two warring powers has achieved a modicum of dominance, and now has control—for the moment—of the territory in which Sanctuary exists. The commander of the force seeks submission from Sanctuary, and they are hesitant and indecisive, easily swayed by their lieutenants—some of whom want Sanctuary destroyed.

The Negotiations: One of the two warring powers approaches the PCs, requesting that Sanctuary host the negotiations. It is a loaded request, as the proposing side implies rejection of the request will reveal Sanctuary is not neutral. And if Sanctuary hosts the negotiations, both sides will constantly demand submission as a show of neutrality, while claiming any show of submission to the other side show Sanctuary is not neutral.

In Between Days

This one-pager is inspired by Mr. Inbetween, and that series has so many different jobs and scenarios that it’s tough to pick just one to act as inspiration for an adventure. However, there were many more interpersonal scenarios—especial in the personal parts of the main character’s life—than there were action scenes. If one is going to take inspiration from Mr. Inbetween, it is low-level criminality interlaced with understandable personal problems. This is difficult to replicate in most RPGs unless the adventure is part of a longer campaign in which the PC or PCs have invested in their character’s personal lives—likely including a partner and children. Lacking that, the scenarios from Mr. Inbetween are similar to many other criminal intellectual properties. I’ll take a stab at one leaving it to you—the person using it for inspiration—to figure out how to stick the landing.

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Falling From the 76

This has been a difficult one-pager to formulate as Fallout 76 lacks the very robust narratives that existed in the previous entries in the Fallout series. In the end, a key theme of all the Fallout games is building on top of the collapse—not just surviving but thriving. So, in this game, the PCs are going to do the same—reclaim the wasteland.

I am not blind to the use of this kind of narrative in the history of colonialism, but since this a game, we can set the parameters, and in our story, the wasteland is not a fiction but truly a place abandoned. But that pretty much necessarily means its dangerous, and that’s where the PCs come in.

Props to The Starlost for some key inspiration on this one.

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House of the Eternal Road

I explained one-pagers briefly in my last one-pager post, and there is a kind of rough explanation in an older post at Sword’s Edge. A one-pager is a very basic adventure outline that is a useful reference for improvisational game management.

This one-pager is based on the movie Road House, which I reviewed at Sword’s Edge—although it’s also very Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven. It lacks any mechanics and so is system agnostic. Although I envision it as post-apocalyptic, it’d totally work for fantasy as well. Other genres might take some shoe-horning.

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Uprise: Bandits At War

One-pagers are a kind of adventure prep that I use which I outlined in an older post over at Sword’s Edge. Basically, because I am very comfortable with improv gaming, I usually work from a very basic adventure outline and do everything else on the fly.

Below is a one-pager based on the movie Uprising, which I reviewed at Sword’s Edge. There are no NPCs/challenges/obstacles statted out—no mechanical opponents presented—so you might need to cook some of those up if you use this. The ideas are there. Run with them.

Story

The PCs are bandits that have formed into an irregular force protecting the local communities from the depredations of the armies fighting the wars—whether those are the nominal “lords” of the land or the armies invading that territory. They haven’t been especially cruel to the villagers, but they are criminals, and their raids have likely created hardship for the local population. They will face both violent encounters with the contending armies, but also interpersonal challenges in finding peace and mutual support with the villages they are now protecting.

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Turning the Engine Over

Wow, quiet around here. I wonder why.

Oh. Right. Me.

Okay, so the key enterprise for SEP right now is finishing Nefertiti Overdrive to deliver to the backers. That is actually out of my hands as it is out for layout (with Todd Crapper of Broken Ruler Games).

The cover for the Found and the Lost which has a warrior in a snowy forest watching an eclipse

Part of the Nefertiti Overdrive Kickstarter was the updating of adventures, and I’ve finished both Proof of Death and Judged. I’m in the midst of updating Get Netiqret, and have at least three more: The Icon of Amun-Ra and The March Up Country will complete the story of the fall of the 25th Dynasty, and I’ll also be updating Daughter of the Sun, the adventure focused on Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s widow—the daughter of Nefertiti. Once all that is done, I’ll embark on a completely new adventure: In A Sea of Dunes. 

The other project is a system—tentatively titled The Found and the Lost—that has been alpha-playtested and seems fit for purpose. I’m not keen to Kickstart that, but I might do it with a low target as Kickstarter can provide a marketing advantage. I’m generally not bringing a lot of the audience for my crowd-funding campaigns. A lot of the backers come from the platform itself.

Deep in the backburner is version of Centurion that is devoid of the historical information and is just a presentation of the system; an update of Kiss My Ass; a complex system on which I have modules for fantasy, modern military action, and cyberpunk. I don’t know if any of those will ever see release.

This place is quiet, but that’s not because nothing is happening.

State of the SEP

It’s been quiet here—no surprise there—but I have been steadily moving forward on a collection of projects.

If you haven’t been tracking it, the Kickstarter for Nefertiti Overdrive 2.0 was successful. The text is written, but it’s now going through a cultural consultant, it then needs to go through an editor, get set for layout, and then have an index completed for it before it’s released. That’ll probably be the end of the summer or early fall 2024.

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Nefertiti Overdrive 2.0: It’s Happening

Back in 2015, Sword’s Edge Publishing crowdfunded Nefertiti Overdrive: High Octane Action in Ancient Egypt. It has since been one of SEP’s most popular games. So much so, that we had an update in 2022. That’s only two years ago, but the 2022 update was a “soft” update—most of the text did not receive a revision or a review.

SEP is currently seeking to finance a real update of Nefertiti Overdrive, including having both a cultural consultant and an editor have a go at the text. Further refinement of the mechanics led to the decision to work on a further update, and the funds will also help to format a print version—which the soft update never had—including getting the text properly indexed.

If you have enjoyed Nefertiti Overdrive, I hope you’ll help us deliver Nefertiti Overdrive 2.0. Please consider supporting the Kickstarter or spreading the word about it.

You can find the Nefertiti Overdrive 2.0 Kickstarter at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1153118353/nefertiti-overdrive-20

Here’s the Quickplay!